Dear Indie lovers,

I hope you're doing well. I really do.

First of all, yes, #109.

Technically, this should be Weekly #110. But last week, for the very first time in more than two years, your Mitxoda Weekly didn't land in your inbox.

I was on holiday.

Yes. It happened. The world kept spinning, the music kept playing, and nobody called the police. At least, not that I'm aware of 😀

So instead of pretending that #109 never existed, here it is. A week late, slightly confused, and just in time for Halloween.

And I had quite a few things to tell you.

Some funny. Some strange. Some seriously annoying.

And one that breaks my heart.

I wish I didn't have to write this.

Peter Lancelotti has passed away.

Peter was from San Pedro, Los Angeles. And if you've been hanging around the independent music community for a while, you may have come across him, his projects, his ideas, or simply his incredible enthusiasm.

Peter was Peter.

A huge heart. An open mind. Always listening. Always curious. Always coming up with ideas that were sometimes completely crazy, sometimes wonderfully unexpected, and usually a bit of both.

He was one of those people you could talk to about absolutely anything.

Music, obviously. But also books, writing, art, technology, strange discoveries, and whatever unusual thought had crossed his mind that morning.

Because Peter wasn't only an incredible supporter of independent artists.

He was an artist himself. A musician, a composer, a writer. The whole package.

I have several memories of him that I'll keep close.

One in particular makes me smile.

At some point, Peter started sharing his own music with me. Compositions he'd dug out of dusty old boxes, almost forgotten recordings that had been sitting there for who knows how long.

And bloody hell, Peter!

Some seriously wild progressive rock compositions. Unexpected turns, adventurous arrangements, crazy ideas. Exactly the kind of stuff you'd expect from someone whose imagination didn't seem to have an off switch.

I remember thinking how wonderful it was that this man, who spent so much time encouraging everyone else's creativity, had all these musical treasures of his own.

More recently, he'd been working on Indie Tea and Demos to Discoveries.

We'd talked about doing things together. Connecting his projects with Mitxoda. Sharing discoveries, bringing some of his ideas into this Weekly, giving independent artists even more opportunities to be heard.

We had ideas.

We had plans.

And I thought we had time.

That's probably what hurts the most.

Peter was Peter. Full of ideas, sometimes completely crazy ones, always ready to listen, to share, to try something new. You could start talking about a song and somehow end up discussing a book, an old prog-rock recording, or some unlikely project he had in mind. And before you knew it, you'd be making plans together.

That's what I'll miss. Those conversations that could go absolutely anywhere. His enthusiasm. His generosity. And that wonderful curiosity of his.

Damn, Peter. We still had so much to talk about.

I'm devastated.

Halloween won't feel quite the same this year.

Rest in peace, my friend.

And wherever you are, I hope you've found a guitar, a piano, a ridiculously complicated prog-rock arrangement, and someone curious enough to listen.

RIP Peter. ❤️

Well.

How do you follow something like that?

I suppose you do what we always do here.

You keep the music playing.

A few weeks ago, I asked you, the wonderful bunch of independent artists scattered all over this planet, to send me your music for a special Halloween edition of Le Salon Indie.

I thought I'd receive a few tracks.

Maybe ten.

Maybe fifteen if I was lucky.

You sent me more than FIFTY.

And around twenty of those were specifically Halloween-related!

Seriously, people. What have I unleashed?

Ghosts, witches, vampires, nightmares, strange creatures, uncomfortable noises, unsettling stories, dark atmospheres, and probably a few things that shouldn't be played after midnight.

But you know what I love most?

The enthusiasm.

You could have simply sent me a Spotify link and moved on.

Instead, some of you dug deep into your catalogues. Others sent brand-new discoveries. Some embraced the Halloween theme with spectacular enthusiasm.

And once again, I found myself staring at my inbox with that slightly stupid smile on my face.

Because this is what happens when you give independent artists an opportunity to play.

They PLAY.

They experiment. They surprise you. They take things somewhere you hadn't imagined.

And then I get the wonderfully impossible task of turning all this into one coherent radio show.

Which, considering my usual relationship with the word coherent, should already worry you.

This week's Le Salon Indie Halloween Special will be a celebration of all those beautifully strange minds.

A little darker than usual.

Probably a little weirder.

But still very much about discovering music you won't necessarily hear anywhere else.

And this year, I'll be thinking of Peter too.

Some ghosts are invited for fun.

Others, we'd give anything to have back.

Come join me in the Salon. The door is open.

Speaking of strange and wonderful minds...

Let's travel to Calgary, Canada.

That's where we find Crystal Eyes, a band whose musical universe feels like someone opened several decades of musical history, threw everything onto the floor, and started assembling something entirely new.

80s New Wave, shoegaze, dream pop, psychedelia, synthesizers, guitars, echoes of old pop records...

And somehow, it all makes sense.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing them, and the conversation went quite a bit further than the usual “So, what are your musical influences?”

Thank goodness.

Because what fascinated me about Crystal Eyes was the way they think.

About creation, time, technology.

About the strange stories we humans build around ourselves.

“We become the stories we tell ourselves.”

That thought stayed with me. And the more I think about it, the more it seems to apply to everything we're doing here.

What is an independent artist, after all?

Someone who decides that an idea deserves to exist, even when nobody has asked for it.

Someone who spends hours, days, sometimes years building something that might only reach a handful of people.

Someone who believes that those few people are worth the effort.

Crystal Eyes are interested in what happens when musical eras collide, when different creative disciplines meet, when artists refuse to remain comfortably inside one category.

And their ambitions don't stop with another album. There are dreams of Japan, more writing, poetry, theatre, film, and a whole universe still waiting to take shape.

I love that.

Because an artist doesn't have to be only one thing.

Peter reminded me of that.

Crystal Eyes remind me of that too.

And if their music manages to make someone, somewhere, feel a little less alone, a little more understood, perhaps that's already something extraordinary.

I won't tell you everything here. That's what the full interview is for.

But if you enjoy discovering not only what musicians create, but what goes on inside their wonderfully complicated heads, this one's for you.

→ Discover the full Crystal Eyes interview on Mitxoda

And while you're there, give their music a proper listen.

Not just fifteen seconds while scrolling through your phone. A real listen.

Remember those?

Right.

We've had ghosts. We've had progressive rock. We've had Canadian dream pop.

Now, how about a little corporate horror?

Because apparently, Halloween isn't complete without Meta finding a new way to make artists nervous.

I came across a piece published on October 28 by 404 Media, titled “Objection, your honor.”

And it made me raise both eyebrows.

Meta has updated its commercial terms for business accounts, expanding the ways it can use content associated with those accounts to develop its products, including its AI-related activities.

And the changes have raised concerns among artists, journalists and small businesses who use Instagram and Facebook.

There's an important nuance: after the backlash, Meta postponed the new terms' effective date from October 30 to November 20, and subsequently narrowed some of the wording. In the EU and UK, users also have a way to object to certain uses of their information.

But still.

Excuse me?

Let's think about this for a second.

You're an independent musician.

You spend six months recording an album.

You pay for the studio. You mix it. You master it. You design the artwork. You write about it. You build a website. You share your work online because, well, that's where people are.

And somewhere along the way, a giant technology company changes its terms and decides it can make additional uses of the material linked to your business account.

Lovely.

What could possibly go wrong?

I've been working with technology for a very long time. I use AI. I experiment with it. I'm fascinated by what it can do.

I'm not interested in joining the “AI is evil and we should all go back to typewriters” club.

Although I do like typewriters.

But there's one little word that seems to be getting lost somewhere between the innovation presentations and the quarterly financial reports.

Consent.

Remember that one?

That wonderfully old-fashioned idea that you should actually ask people before using the things they've created?

What bothers me isn't the existence of new technology.

It's the increasingly casual way in which the work of millions of people can be treated as an available resource.

A song isn't just a file. A photograph isn't just a bunch of pixels. A book isn't just text waiting to be processed.

And an artist isn't simply someone producing raw material for somebody else's business model.

Perhaps I'm becoming an old grumpy man.

Actually, scratch that. I probably already am.

But if wanting artists to retain meaningful control over their own creations makes me grumpy, I'll happily wear the badge.

With a pumpkin on it.

→ Read “Objection, your honor” on 404 Media

If you're in Europe or the UK and use Meta's business tools, it's worth checking the article and your privacy settings to understand the available objection process.

Because sometimes the monster isn't hiding under your bed.

Sometimes it's hiding in paragraph 47 of the commercial terms you clicked Accept on.

Happy Halloween!

You know, I had initially imagined this Weekly as something a little playful.

A Halloween Special.

Some strange music. A few jokes. A little rant about technology. An interview with a fantastic Canadian band.

And then came the news about Peter.

And suddenly, everything felt different.

I've spent more than two years writing these Weeklies. Every week, I try to introduce you to artists, share discoveries, tell stories, and sometimes wander off into completely unrelated subjects.

You've probably noticed that last part.

But somewhere along the way, something happened that I hadn't entirely expected.

I started making friends.

Real ones.

People I've never met in person but with whom I've exchanged countless messages.

People I have the chance to meet as well, in Germany during the Indiependence Day.

People whose music I've played, whose stories I've heard, whose ideas I've discussed over late-night conversations across different time zones.

People who have become part of my life without ever setting foot in my living room.

Peter was one of them. And losing him hurts.

It also reminds me why I keep doing this.

Not for algorithms or numbers. (We touched a glass ceiling, with about 525 weekly readers. And I thank you for that).

Not to produce more content.

But because somewhere in Calgary, San Pedro, Brussels, Berlin, or a tiny village I've never heard of, somebody is making something wonderful.

And somebody else might be waiting to discover it.

That simple. That complicated. That beautiful.

So, yes, we'll celebrate Halloween.

We'll play strange music. We'll welcome the monsters. But above all, we'll keep listening to each other.

Because we never really know how much time we have.

And sometimes, those conversations we think we can continue next week...

Well.

You know.

Thank you for being here.

And Peter, this one's for you.

See you in the Salon.

Much love,

Mitxoda ❤️

Some songs arrive after years of waiting. Others find their way out of a difficult moment, a question, or the simple desire to see the sun again.

This week, we’re travelling through time, uncertainty and the changing seasons with six independent artists. Wherever you are, there’s a little space for you in this selection.

🇬🇧 Distance From Zero — You Will Never Bring Us Down

Discover on Mitxoda →

🇩🇰 Peter Fryd — Like Rivers Run

Discover on Mitxoda →

🇬🇧 LUDIOSIS — Time

Discover on Mitxoda → my coup de coeur ❤

🇳🇱 Groovalistics — New Breeze

Discover on Mitxoda →

🇺🇸 AC — I’m So Lost

Discover on Mitxoda →

🇹🇹🇺🇸 TriniPrince — Just Like the Clouds

Discover on Mitxoda →

Six songs, six stories, and six more reasons to keep our ears, and our doors, open.

Love, on all of you. No matter what.

One word. A few clues. Your indie brain against the clock.

Play Soundcheck → One word. A few clues. Your indie brain against the clock.

Vote in the Weekly 100 → Help independent songs climb the community ranking.

Listen to Le Salon Indie → Two hours inside the independent music world.

Submit a Song → Making music yourself? Send it to Mitxoda.

END 😆